Related terms

See also

A club is an association of people united by a
common interest or goal. The service
club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable
activities; there are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social
activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so
forth.

History

Historically, clubs occurred in all ancient states
of which we have detailed knowledge. Once people started living
together in larger groups, there was need for people with a common
interest to be able to associate despite having no ties of kinship.
Organizations of the sort have existed for many years, as evidenced
by Ancient
Greek clubs and
associations in Ancient Rome.

Origins of the word and concept

It is uncertain whether the
use of the word "club" originated in its meaning of a knot of
people, or from the fact that the members “clubbed” together to pay
the expenses of their meetings. The oldest English clubs were
merely informal periodic gatherings of friends for the purpose of
dining or drinking together. Thomas
Occleve (in the time of Henry
IV) mentions such a club called La Court de Bone Compaignie
(the Court of Good Company), of which he was a member. In 1659
John
Aubrey wrote, “We now use the word clubbe for a sodality [a
society, association, or fraternity of any kind] in a
tavern.”

Coffee houses

The word “club,” in the sense of an association
to promote good-fellowship and social intercourse, became common in
England at
the time of Tatler and The
Spectator (1709–1712). With the
introduction of coffee-drinking in the middle of the 17th
century, clubs entered on a more permanent phase. The coffee
houses of the later Stuart period are
the real originals of the modern clubhouse. The clubs of the late
17th and early 18th century
type resembled their Tudor
forerunners in being oftenest associations solely for conviviality
or literary coteries. But many were confessedly political, e.g. The
Rota, or Coffee Club (1659), a debating
society for the spread of republican ideas, broken up at
the
Restoration in 1660, the Calves
Head Club (c.1693) and the Green
Ribbon Club (1675). The characteristics of all these clubs
were:

No permanent financial bond between the members, each man’s
liability ending for the time being when he had paid his “score”
after the meal.

No permanent clubhouse, though each clique tended to make some
special coffee house or tavern their headquarters.

These coffee-house clubs soon became hotbeds of
political scandal-mongering and intriguing, and in 1675 King
Charles II issued a proclamation which ran: “His Majesty hath
thought fit and necessary that coffee houses be (for the future)
put down and suppressed,” because “in such houses divers false,
malitious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to
the Defamation of his Majesty’s Government and to the Disturbance
of Peace and Quiet of the Realm.” So unpopular was this
proclamation that it was almost instantly found necessary to
withdraw it, and by Anne’s
reign the coffee-house club was a feature of England’s social
life.

18th and 19th century

The idea of the club developed in two
directions. One was of a permanent institution with a fixed
clubhouse. The London
coffeehouse clubs in increasing their members absorbed the whole
accommodation of the coffeehouse or tavern where they held their
meetings, and this became the clubhouse, often retaining the name
of the original innkeeper, e.g. White's, Brooks's, Arthur's, and
Boodle's.
These still exist today as the famous gentlemen's
clubs.

The peripatetic lifestyle of the 18th and 19th
century middle classes also drove the development of more
residential clubs, which had bedrooms and other facilities.
Military and naval officers, lawyers, judges, members of Parliament
and government officials tended to have an irregular presence in
the major cities of the
Empire, particularly London, spending perhaps a few months
there before moving on for a prolonged period and then returning.
Especially when this presence did not coincide with the
Season, a permanent establishment in the city (i.e., a house
owned or rented, with the requisite staff), or the opening of a
townhouse (generally shuttered outside the season) was inconvenient
or uneconomic, while hotels were rare and socially declasee.
Clubbing with a number of like-minded friends to secure a large
shared house with a manager was therefore a convenient
solution.

The other sort of club meets occasionally or
periodically and often has no clubhouse, but exists primarily for
some specific object. Such are the many purely athletic, sports and
pastimes clubs, the Alpine, chess, yacht and motor clubs. Also
there are literary clubs (see writing
circle and book
club), musical and art clubs, publishing clubs; and the name of
“club” has been annexed by a large group of associations which fall
between the club proper and mere friendly
societies, of a purely periodic and temporary nature, such as
slate, goose and Christmas
clubs, which do not need to be registered under the Friendly
Societies Act.

The earliest clubs on the European continent were
of a political nature. These in 1848 were repressed in Austria and
Germany,
and later clubs of Berlin and Vienna were mere
replicas of their English prototypes. In France, where the
term cercle is most usual, the first was Le Club Politique (1782),
and during the French
Revolution such associations proved important political forces
(see Jacobins,
Feuillants,
Cordeliers). Of
the purely social clubs in Paris the most
notable were the Jockey-Club
de Paris (1833), the Cercle de l'Union, the Traveller's and the
Cercle Interallié.

Types of clubs

School clubs

These are activities performed by students
that fall outside the realm of classes. Such clubs may fall outside
the normal curriculum of school or university education or, as in
the case of subject matter clubs (e.g. student chapters of professional
societies), may supplement the curriculum through informal
meetings and professional mentoring.

Professional societies

These organizations are partly
social, partly professional in nature and provide professionals
with opportunities for advanced education, presentations on current
research, business contacts, public advocacy for the profession and
other advantages. Examples of these groups include medical
associations, scientific
societies, and bar
associations. Professional societies frequently have layers of
organization, with regional, national and international levels. The
local chapters generally meet more often and often include advanced
students unable to attend national meetings.

Service clubs

A service club is a type of voluntary
organization where members meet regularly for social outings
and to perform charitable works either by direct hands-on efforts
or by raising money for other organizations.

Social clubs

Some social clubs are organized around
competitive games, such as chess and bridge. Other clubs are
designed to encourage membership of certain social classes. Those
made up of the elite are best known as gentlemen's
clubs (not to be confused with strip clubs)
and country
clubs (though these also have an athletic function,
see below). Less elitist, but still in some cases exclusive,
are working
men's clubs. Clubs restricted to either officers or enlisted
men exist on military
bases.

The modern gentlemen's club, sometimes
proprietary, i.e. owned by an individual or private syndicate, but
more frequently owned by the members who delegate to a committee
the management of its affairs, first reached its highest
development in London, where the district of St. James's
has long been known as “Clubland”. Current London clubs include
Soho's
Groucho
Club, which opened in 1985 as "the antidote to the traditional
club." In this spirit, the club was named for Groucho Marx
because of his famous remark that he would not wish to join any
club that would have him as a member.

Social activities clubs

Social activities clubs are a
modern combination of several other types of clubs and reflect
today’s more eclectic and varied society. These clubs are centered
around the activities available to the club members in the city or
area in which the club is located. Because the purpose of these
clubs is split between general social interaction and taking part
in the events themselves, clubs tend to have more single members
than married ones; some clubs restrict their membership to one of
the other, and some are for gays and lesbians.

Membership can be limited or open to the general
public, as can the events. Most clubs have a limited membership
based upon specific criteria, and limit the events to members to
increase the security of the members, thus creating an increased
sense of cameradery and belonging. Social activities clubs can be
for profit or not for profit, and some are a mix of the two (a
for-profit club with a non-profit charitable arm, for instance).
The Inter-Varsity
Club (IVC) is the biggest British non-profit one.

Country clubs, athletic clubs, and sports clubs

There are
two types of athletic and sports clubs, those organized for
sporting participants (which include athletic clubs and country
clubs), and those primarily for spectator fans of a team.

Athletic and country clubs offer one or more
recreational sports facilities to their members. Such clubs may
also offer social activities and facilities, and some members may
join primarily to take advantage of the social opportunities.
Country clubs offer a variety of recreational sports facilities to its members
and are usually located in suburban or rural areas. Most country
clubs have golf. Swimming
pools, tennis
courts, polo grounds
and exercise facilities
are also common. Country clubs usually provide dining facilities to
their members and guests, and frequently host catered events like
weddings. Similar clubs in urban areas are often called athletic
clubs. These clubs often feature indoor sports, such as indoor
tennis, squash, basketball, boxing, and exercise
facilities.

Members of sports clubs that support a team can
be sports amateurs -- groups who meet to practice a sport, as for
example in most cycling
clubs -- or professionals -- football
clubs consist of well-paid team members and thousands of
supporters. A sports club can thus comprise participants (not
necessarily competitors) or spectator fans, or both.

Some organizations exist with a mismatch between
name and function. The Jockey Club
is not a club for jockeys, but rather exists to regulate the sport
of horseracing; the Marylebone
Cricket Club was until recently the regulatory body of cricket,
and so on.

Sports club should not be confused with gyms and health clubs, which also
can be for members only.